The two regimes disagree about what income is
The rows above move for one reason before any other: the defaults define taxable income differently. Spain’s autónomo pays tax on what is left: turnover minus documented expenses, minus the cuotas paid, minus an allowance of 5% of net income capped at €2,000 a year. Portugal’s simplificado taxes a share of turnover fixed by your activity code (75% for a profession on the art. 151.º list, 35% for a service that is not) and never asks what you spent. The coefficient is a cost allowance you get without spending, so the deciding variable is your expense ratio. A developer selling time from a laptop rarely spends what the coefficient assumes and is quietly over-deducting in Portugal; a freelancer carrying subcontractors, gear and travel gets credit for all of it in Spain and none in Lisbon. Settle the list question early: whether your registered activity sits on that table moves the Portuguese base more than any rate gap between the countries.
Contributions do the sorting the tax rates get credit for
Spain’s cuota is monthly, bracketed by an earnings forecast, and owed for every registered month whether clients paid or not; the base under it stops growing at €61,214 a year. Portugal charges 21.4% of 70% of service turnover, recomputed quarterly from what you declared (a dead quarter shrinks the bill instead of ignoring it) under a ceiling of €77,347. The deduction rules pull the countries further apart: Spain treats every cuota euro as a business expense, while Portugal lets contributions reduce the coefficient base only where they exceed 10% of gross income, and only for service activities.
The first year is its own comparison, and the matrix deliberately prices the steady state. A new autónomo pays a flat €80 a month plus a small surcharge; a new Portuguese independent pays no contributions for the first twelve months and gets the service coefficient cut for the opening years. Year one runs cheaper than your row says in either country, and Portugal’s arrival package is the bigger one.
The ceilings fork at different heights
Portugal’s simplified regime ends at €200,000 of turnover. Past it, contabilidade organizada becomes compulsory: a certified accountant with it, contributions on actual profit, and a minimum annual contribution base of €9,668. Spain’s simplified estimation holds until prior-year turnover passes €600,000. Between those lines sits a band where the Spanish freelancer still files from a spreadsheet and the Portuguese one is paying for an accounting engagement. Price that in before comparing the tax lines alone.
Beckham is a door, not a default
The Beckham row prices a flat 24% on income up to €600,000, for up to 6 years. Read its conditions before wanting it: ordinary self-employment is excluded, and freelance income enters only as a certified entrepreneurial activity or as a highly qualified professional serving start-ups or doing R&D, after five preceding tax years outside Spain. Moving as an employee and going freelance later does not get you in. If your work fits none of those doors, the honest Spanish column for you is the autónomo one.
What changed in 2026
Spain’s RETA rates and bracket tables for 2026 arrived by ministerial order, but the first-year flat cuota did not: its statutory basis ran out with the previous cycle, the Budget Law that must now set it has not been passed, and Seguridad Social charges the old figure regardless, hence the provisional flag on the Spanish first-year line. Portugal’s 2026 Budget amended other articles of the income tax code and left the simplificado alone: the turnover ceiling and the coefficients carried over unchanged, the contribution code was not amended, and the annual IAS revision moved the contribution ceiling.